The History of St Mary's Kirk

Perched on a green mound at the west end of Hawick’s High Street, where the Slitrig meets the Teviot, St Mary’s and Old Parish Church has anchored the town’s skyline and story for more than 800 years.

Beginnings: a medieval dedication (1214)

The site’s first clear appearance in the record is 1214, when Adam, Bishop of Caithness (formerly an abbot of Melrose), consecrated a new church here in honor of the Virgin Mary. Hawick was a small Borders settlement then, but the dedication placed it firmly within Scotland’s network of medieval religious houses.

Reformation to Enlightenment: a congregation gathered close

Post-Reformation worship reshaped the interior. In 1763–64 the church was rebuilt into the T-plan you see today, an arrangement that pulled the congregation around pulpit and communion table, reflecting Presbyterian priorities of preaching and Word.

Fire and renewal (1880–1883)

Disaster struck in 1880 when a fire gutted much of the building. Only the stout clock-tower largely survived. What you see now is a faithful reconstruction on the same footprint, carried out in 1882-83 by the Edinburgh architects Wardrop & Reid. Inside, the church retains the T-plan sanctuary and a handsome barrel-vaulted ceiling.

The tower that set the time

St Mary’s tower, built in rubble masonry and topped with a bell-cast roof and weather-vane, is a six-storey landmark. Its clock (added in 1873) once kept Hawick punctual.

Lives remembered

Walk the sloping kirkyard and you’ll read Borders history in stone—18th- and 19th-century headstones, family plots, and memorials. During the 1760s works, the Buccleuch burial vaults were sealed below ground, a reminder of the church’s ties to local nobility. Inside, a war-memorial communion table and book of remembrance anchor the parish’s 20th-century story.